This Treaty Is Good for the Environment. It Might Even Be Good for Trump.

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May 23, 2019

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Used in refrigerators and air-conditioners, HFCs are potent contributors to the earth’s warming.CreditCreditHiroko Masuike/The New York Times

If President Trump is looking for ways to strengthen America’s economic competitiveness without the toxic fallout of his trade conflicts, there is a simple move he could make that would improve the trade balance, create tens of thousands of jobs, win him bipartisan praise and, as a side benefit, help save the planet.

It’s time for Mr. Trump to embrace the Kigali agreement.

The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol of 1987 is, technically, a climate-change deal — possibly the most important climate-change deal that most people have never heard of. Agreed to in October 2016 by delegates from 197 nations at a conference in Kigali, Rwanda, the accord sets hard targets for the global phaseout of chemical coolants called hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs. HFCs lack the ozone-destroying potency of their chlorofluorocarbon predecessors, which were banned by the original 1987 treaty. But, as greenhouse gases go, they are devastating, packing 1,000 times the heat-trapping punch of carbon dioxide.

This is hardly a shock, considering this president’s skepticism of climate change, regulation, multilateral treaties and anything that has former President Barack Obama’s fingerprints on it.

And yet, unlike many Obama-era artifacts — the Paris agreement, the Iran deal, the Dream Act, the Affordable Care Act — Mr. Trump did not immediately seek to destroy the amendment. In fact, his administration expressed support for it early on. In November 2017, the State Department said it had “initiated the process” to consider ratification.

What makes Kigali hard for the White House to write off is its support by American manufacturers. As companies like Honeywell and Carrier see it, HFCs are on their way out, and industry will have to adjust eventually. Better to put a plan into place that provides regulatory predictability and stability.

Sweeter still, domestic companies have long been working on next-generation replacements for HFCs and stand to benefit from the exploding global demand for air-conditioners and refrigerators.

Last May, 32 top executives from affected companies sent the president a letter urging ratification. Theirs was a purely economic case, laden with data aimed at Mr. Trump’s competitive instincts: projections that the deal would create 33,000 manufacturing jobs, increase exports by $5 billion and improve the balance of trade for their industries.

A trio of conservative taxpayers’ groups hit similar themes, noting that, absent ratification, American manufacturers could lose ground in foreign markets “at the cost of jobs and wealth.”

Likewise, 13 senators — all Republicans — weighed in, warning, “The failure to ratify this amendment could transfer our American advantage to other countries, including China, which have been dumping outdated products into the global marketplace and our backyard.”

China stealing America’s competitive advantage? That should be incentive enough for the president.

Despite these warnings, the agreement has failed to capture Mr. Trump’s attention. And elements of his administration — specifically, within the Environmental Protection Agency — continue to oppose ratification, largely for broader ideological reasons. As a result, the deal is stuck, and supporters are losing hope that it will be unstuck — at least by this president.

Seeking alternative routes to similar ends, interest groups are deep in talks with Congress about a legislative solution. Beyond Washington, a number of states are developing their own plans for phasing out HFCs, with California leading the way.

But industry players say state action will produce a confusing, inefficient “patchwork” solution. And the congressional path brings its own challenges, including the difficulty of moving any legislation in this polarized political climate. Last year, a bipartisan bill effectively directing the E.P.A. to adopt Kigali-like measures went nowhere. A more expansive measure is in the works. But advocates caution that, even if legislation could achieve a similar framework, a failure to ratify the accord would be a mark against American manufacturers in the global market.

The fate of the agreement remains uncertain. A State Department spokesman said only, “The administration is considering transmittal of the Kigali Amendment to the Senate for its advice and consent, but no final decision has been reached.”

Mr. Trump risks missing a big opportunity here. His administration may not have moved to kill the Kigali amendment, but it seems depressingly content to let it languish, at the expense of both American competitiveness and the health of the planet.